Hi all,
I think I mentioned these devices a few weeks back so I thought I'd purchase a few and have a play.
If you're not aware these devices can emulate ROMs and come in all the sizes and will do masked ROMs too although I haven't got there yet.
Amazing so far and so many things I haven't tried yet. They are about a tenner each but the time and effort they save it's a no brainer.
The devices can be flash programmed in seconds so no waiting 20-30 mins to erase ROMs and re-burning when you're testing patches to code. Then plugging them in to test and finding they don't work! (yep we've all been there) Once installed in the ROM socket they can be re-programmed in situ via USB. Here's a pic using an MPU3 card...
Also big and smaller brothers. They do devices for larger chips but I don't need them as yet. Another advantage of these is you can save multiple images which can be selected by the jumpers so changing code can be done in seconds. Of course in the case of MPU3 & 4 you can't put them in the case as it's not deep enough but that's fine just for testing purposes.
Another advantage is you can put the whole image on one device and patch the CS lines to the empty sockets (not tried this as yet) but it's all explained in the blurb.
I needed to use these due to trying to defeat the CHR and CRC check as burning traditional ROMs was taking all day. It can now be done in seconds.
I'd like to thank John Parker for his assistance with this and taking the time to explain it. Cheers John you are a squire and a gentleman sir.
For the guys out there that like hacking ROMs for changing the gameplay, I think these devices will be a godsend. It does also mention in the blurb you can change bytes on a running system, not tried that either but it's all terrific stuff.